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Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Stealth Checks - How do you handle them?
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<blockquote data-quote="iserith" data-source="post: 7038113" data-attributes="member: 97077"><p>It seems like an ongoing effort at being stealthy to me, so it's a good place for a passive check (objections to passive checks aside). Anyway, I will try to assume for the sake of the discussion that there is a time when you'd want to have a check now and narrate later. The desire on the part of some DMs appears to be that the PCs can't use the result of the roll to inform their subsequent decisions which necessitates a "secret roll" in which case that's another place for a passive check. I'm not into secret rolls personally, but I'm trying to work with the scenario under discussion. In this kind of scenario, I would probably ask for the check now and, if it's a failure, narrate how some shady type follows the PCs and observes them for a while before wandering off. This would presage the ambush attempt later and even give the PCs another chance to change their fate if they can figure out a way to discreetly disappear their tail. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>To be clear, I was referring to automatic successes being when the DM simply says "You succeed..." without an ability check, passive checks included. The passive check is just for tasks with uncertain outcomes being performed repeatedly. A player can't decide whether a check is a regular check or a passive one outside of how he or she establishes the amount of time spent on the task. A passive check will tend to also be an abstraction when traveling or exploring anyway, a mechanic to resolve a general task.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>They still have this now, but I guess the part about how long each "turn" is was removed. By my reading, the task "keep watch for danger" (or words to that effect) accounts for hidden monsters and traps and the associated passive check is Perception.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="iserith, post: 7038113, member: 97077"] It seems like an ongoing effort at being stealthy to me, so it's a good place for a passive check (objections to passive checks aside). Anyway, I will try to assume for the sake of the discussion that there is a time when you'd want to have a check now and narrate later. The desire on the part of some DMs appears to be that the PCs can't use the result of the roll to inform their subsequent decisions which necessitates a "secret roll" in which case that's another place for a passive check. I'm not into secret rolls personally, but I'm trying to work with the scenario under discussion. In this kind of scenario, I would probably ask for the check now and, if it's a failure, narrate how some shady type follows the PCs and observes them for a while before wandering off. This would presage the ambush attempt later and even give the PCs another chance to change their fate if they can figure out a way to discreetly disappear their tail. To be clear, I was referring to automatic successes being when the DM simply says "You succeed..." without an ability check, passive checks included. The passive check is just for tasks with uncertain outcomes being performed repeatedly. A player can't decide whether a check is a regular check or a passive one outside of how he or she establishes the amount of time spent on the task. A passive check will tend to also be an abstraction when traveling or exploring anyway, a mechanic to resolve a general task. They still have this now, but I guess the part about how long each "turn" is was removed. By my reading, the task "keep watch for danger" (or words to that effect) accounts for hidden monsters and traps and the associated passive check is Perception. [/QUOTE]
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Stealth Checks - How do you handle them?
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